Cellulosic Ethanol Blog

New Publications on Climate Change

2008-03-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

Please read our newest publications: "Can We Survive? (Part 1): The Changes Required to Deal Effectively with Global Warming, Stephen Paley, George Oister, and Richard T. Hull, Free Inquiry, 28:2 (February/March 2008), pp. 44-47. "Can We Survive? (Part 2): The Changes Required to Deal Effectively with Global Warming, Stephen Paley, George K. Oister, and Richard T. Hull, Free Inquiry, 28:3 (April/May 2008), pp. 37-43.

Cyclical nature of climate change

2008-03-31T10:45:00.000-07:00

Since global warming happened in a huge way after each of the ice ages, and no human beings were around to cause it then, what do you think were the causes of those warming periods and what makes you think that this time is any different except that human beings are around to witness the cyclic changes this time? Are we trying to change something over which human beings have no significant control?

2008-02-08T11:53:00.000-08:00

MSNBC reported today, "The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday.
The study challenges the rush to corn-based ethanol as a response to global warming, but says there is a future for ethanol from waste products that do not require uprooting land where carbon is already absorbed by trees and plants. "
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23057867/)

Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from most of the mass of plants grown on land. It does not require dedicating land to an increase in corn production. The process breaks down the cellulose of plants back into sugars and then ferments both the natural sugars and those that originate from "broken down" cellulose into ethanol. So we get nore ethanol per plant and, consequently, require fewer plants to make a given amount of ethano.

Therefore, less acreage is needed to make a given amount of ethanol. For a detailed explanation, please refer to http://www.agriculturalmanagementsystems.com/cellulosic_ethanol_production.shtml and the concept papers we have posted there.

Bottom line: The United States can replace all imported oil with cellulosic ethanol made from the plants grown on less than 10 percent of the acreage currently devoted to United States agriculture.

Moreover, if we can use algae or phytoplankton as biomass (see http://www.agriculturalmanagementsystems.com/ams_research_publications/coupling_carbon_sequestration_with_cellulosic_ethanol_tech.pdf),
then we can replace all energy applications of oil used by all nations of the world without using ANY land currently used for agriculture -- and, perhaps, without using any land at all by growing phytoplankton at sea.

Carbon Negative Vs Carbon Neutral Ethanol Production

2007-11-11T16:58:00.000-08:00

Can you explain the meaning of "carbon negative" ethanol production? And how does it differ from the terms, "carbon neutral" and "carbon positive?"

The term "carbon neutral" usually refers to an energy technology that produces energy without putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. An example often used to illustrate the concept is the solar cell that transforms light energy into electricity. But there is more to it than that: constructing a solar cell requires the use of heat usually derived from burning a fossil fuel. Thus the cell's construction puts a certain amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Once built, however, a properly designed and constructed solar cell will produce much more electric energy during it's lifetime than the energy required to construct it.

Today biofuels, like fossil fuels, are "carbon positive." That is, cultivating the biomass (green plants) and turning them into biofuel and then burning the biofuel puts more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that is pulled out by photosynthesis when the biomass plants are grown.

Growing biomass for biofuel pulls carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis. However, depending upon the plant and how it is cultivated, the use of fuel (for farm machinery) and (energy intensive) farm chemicals and fertilizer, results in some carbon dioxide being put back into the atmosphere when fuel is burned or the farm chemicals manufactured.

When biomass is turned into biofuel a certain amount of heat is required which is supplied by burning a fossil fuel. This also results in some carbon dioxide being put back into the atmosphere. Much carbon dioxide is also generally produced by the processes that turns biomass into biofuels.

Finally, carbon dioxide is put back into the atmosphere when the biofuel is burned.

If: (1) green plants which require little cultivation (fuel and agricultural chemicals) are used for biomass; (2) a process is utilized that requires the input of very little energy to turn biomass into biofuel; and (3) the carbon dioxide, produced when biomass is turned into biofuel, is captured (in a low cost, practical manner) and sequestered long term (also in a practical manner) then photosynthesis pulls more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere when the biomass is grown then is put back in all of the other steps.

We have just described production of a "carbon negative" biofuel; one whose production and use results in more carbon dioxide being pulled out of the atmosphere then is put back. That is, if the carbon dioxide -- that is captured (and subsequently sequestered) when biomass is changed into biofuel -- is not counted, then producing and using the biofuel pulls net carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and the biofuel produced in this manner is "carbon negative." (The more of such a biofuel that is produced and used the more carbon dioxide is pulled from the atmosphere.)

The process of rendering a biofuel carbon negative has been coupled with a particular process of making "cellulosic" ethanol from biomass that: (1) costs US $0.70/gallon to manufacture the ethanol; (2) produces almost no pollution during manufacture; (3) requires very small amount of energy to change biomass into ethanol, which results in eleven times the energy out (in the form of ethanol) compared to the amounts of energy required to cultivate the biomass and then turn it into ethanol; (4) can replace all oil imported into the US with suitable biomass grown on less than 10% of the land currently devoted to US agriculture (so that land for food-and-fiber versus biomass production is no longer in conflict.)

The result is a low cost, carbon negative replacement for most energy applications of oil. (If it is used to replace oil on a large scale, which is perfectly feasible, a second environmental benefit is divesting ourselves of the most carbon positive enterprise on earth, the oil industry and its support industries and technologies.

More information on carbon negative cellulosic ethanol and appropriate biomass is available on the links under, "learn more" at the right of this blog.

Welcome

2007-09-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

We've set up this blog to facilitate questions and answers about the papers we have posted on the Agricultural Management Systems website. Please post questions and we will respond as quickly as we can. Private correspondence should be directed to Stephen Paley at his e-mail: spaley1AMS@aol.com.